Main Menu

Mind-Body Medicine Theory

Recent Discoveries Suggest a Unified Theory of Mind-Body Medicine
Based on Oxidative Stress and Chronic Inflammation

Your brain responds in the same way to physical stress (e.g., sprained ankle) as to mental stress (e.g., breaking up with boyfriend or girlfriend)

Your brain communicates with your immunesystem and vice versa through a variety of neurotransmitters and other messenger molecules

Both unrelieved physical stress and unresolved mental stress result in oxidative stress

Oxidative stress occurs when your normal cell metabolism must work so hard that the toxic byproducts exceed the capacity of scavenger molecules to neutralize them

Although making up only 2% of your total body mass, your brain consumes at least 20% of your total energy, resulting in disproportionate oxidative stress when you experience mental stress or emotional conflicts

Your hippocampus, seat of learning and memory, is the only brain area that makes new neuron cells in adulthood, making it possible to unlearn traumatic memories

The main chronic inflammation messenger molecule, NFkB, inhibits your hippocampal capability making new memory cells, making it difficult to unlearn traumatic memories and learn a new “memory of the future,” i.e., set goals and feel optimism